Wanderlust support group 5

[voron]

Weirdly, for reasons I still don't quite understand, this is not happening with Polish (in Poland) or Russian.

I remember my surprise when I first found out (when I was 13 or so) from my brother's German book that German has dialects some of which are hardly mutually intelligible.

My thought was: "Wow, are those people illiterate or what? Do they live in the mountains with no access to books and TV?" Because for me as a native speaker of Russian it was the norm that everyone speaks the same language with no dialect variation.

[Lur]

Slavic languages. Oh. What do I do, what do I do. Help.

[Yasna]

Slavic languages. Oh. What do I do, what do I do. Help.

Master Russian, then dabble in the rest of them, which should be much more comfortable and effective coming from a Slavic base.

[Aurinĭa]

Slavic languages. Oh. What do I do, what do I do. Help.

Bulgarian.
If you insist on cases, Czech.

[księżycowy]

Polish!

(I had to at this point. )

[Antea]

Because I am advancing with Swedish, suddenly Icelandic seems much more understandable for me (I don’t know why ), and I have a strong wanderlust for it, as well as for Faroese, again

[Linguaphile]

Because I am advancing with Swedish, suddenly Icelandic seems much more understandable for me (I don’t know why ), and I have a strong wanderlust for it, as well as for Faroese, again

It was the same for me with Saami. I mean, when I had never studied any Saami languages at all, I was listening to Mari Boine songs one day and realized I could understand bits and pieces because of Finnic cognates... cool... so... since then I've been dabbling with Saami vocab but still haven't studied any grammar yet. Maybe this summer.

[Ciarán12]

Polish!

(I had to at this point. )

I wish I had a wanderlust for Polish. I'm currently in Kraków and about 2 days ago I was like "Shit, what if they don't speak English? Gotta learn at least the basics." So I figured I'd start the Michel Thomas course for Polish. I only managed to get about the first 2 hours or so done because I couldn't keep my interest going (in fairness, I was traveling through other countries doing touristy stuff so I was occupied with other things). So now I can say that I can't speak Polish, ask them if they speak English, grunt semi-intelligible phrases at people ("Where station? Does madam know where is bank? I don't understand..." Etc.). Maybe before I get to Gdańsk I will be able to finish more of the course.

Strangely, I had quite the wanderlust for Czech when I while in Prague over the last two days. Mainly because Prague is amazing and I want to live there.

[Naava]

Because I am advancing with Swedish, suddenly Icelandic seems much more understandable for me (I don’t know why ), and I have a strong wanderlust for it, as well as for Faroese, again

It was the same for me with Saami. I mean, when I had never studied any Saami languages at all, I was listening to Mari Boine songs one day and realized I could understand bits and pieces because of Finnic cognates... cool... so... since then I've been dabbling with Saami vocab but still haven't studied any grammar yet. Maybe this summer.

Me too, me too... There's something familiar in the Saami languages, which is so fascinating because I'm used to studying languages that have very little in common with Finnish, but at the same time they're so different and that makes me very curious. I need to know more!

[księżycowy]

I wish I had a wanderlust for Polish. I'm currently in Kraków and about 2 days ago I was like "Shit, what if they don't speak English? Gotta learn at least the basics." So I figured I'd start the Michel Thomas course for Polish. I only managed to get about the first 2 hours or so done because I couldn't keep my interest going (in fairness, I was traveling through other countries doing touristy stuff so I was occupied with other things). So now I can say that I can't speak Polish, ask them if they speak English, grunt semi-intelligible phrases at people ("Where station? Does madam know where is bank? I don't understand..." Etc.). Maybe before I get to Gdańsk I will be able to finish more of the course.

Maybe you should join the study group.

[vijayjohn]

Slavic languages. Oh. What do I do, what do I do. Help.

Romani.

Because I am advancing with Swedish, suddenly Icelandic seems much more understandable for me (I don’t know why )

Because they're related?

Strangely, I had quite the wanderlust for Czech when I while in Prague over the last two days. Mainly because Prague is amazing and I want to live there.

You should come work where I work.

[Linguaphile]

Because I am advancing with Swedish, suddenly Icelandic seems much more understandable for me (I don’t know why ), and I have a strong wanderlust for it, as well as for Faroese, again

It was the same for me with Saami. I mean, when I had never studied any Saami languages at all, I was listening to Mari Boine songs one day and realized I could understand bits and pieces because of Finnic cognates... cool... so... since then I've been dabbling with Saami vocab but still haven't studied any grammar yet. Maybe this summer.

Me too, me too... There's something familiar in the Saami languages, which is so fascinating because I'm used to studying languages that have very little in common with Finnish, but at the same time they're so different and that makes me very curious. I need to know more!

Yep, just bits and pieces like the repeated forms of ájgge ( aega aika) in Jarŋŋa's Ájges ájggáj in Lule Saami or these gathered together into just three stanzas of Mari Boine's Soria Moria Palássa in Northern Saami:

vástádusaid ( vastuseid)
álás ( & alasti)
máilbmái ( & maailma)*
manan ( lähen < minna menen)
beaivve ( päeva päiva)*
galbma ( külma kylmä)*
seainnis ( seinas seinässä)
nieiddažat ( neitsike neitonen)

*Due to orthographic differences and phoneme-length issues, they sound more alike than they look.

[vijayjohn]

Ájgge is probably the only word in any Saami language that I can remember off the top of my head, and I didn't know what it actually meant until I looked it up just now. I guess now I also know sápmi in Northern Sami.

[Lur]

That's one of those from old Germanic, right?

Slavic languages. Oh. What do I do, what do I do. Help.

Master Russian, then dabble in the rest of them, which should be much more comfortable and effective coming from a Slavic base.

Sure, "master Russian", sounds perfectly reasonable

Slavic languages. Oh. What do I do, what do I do. Help.

Bulgarian.
If you insist on cases, Czech.

Is there any reason in particular you like those?

[vijayjohn]

That's one of those from old Germanic, right?

Huh? Both those words are indigenous.

Slavic languages. Oh. What do I do, what do I do. Help.

Master Russian, then dabble in the rest of them, which should be much more comfortable and effective coming from a Slavic base.

Sure, "master Russian", sounds perfectly reasonable

Yeah, I've tried that approach. It doesn't work that well. You do Russian, then you see a language like Serbian and you're like "wait, you conjugate 'to be' in the present tense? And you have clitic and non-clitic forms for it? Wtf is going on??"

Bulgarian.
If you insist on cases, Czech.

Is there any reason in particular you like those?

I will say that Bulgarian kind of feels like a compromise between East and South Slavic to me.

[Lur]

That's one of those from old Germanic, right?

Huh? Both those words are indigenous.

They've got plenty of very indigenous words which are from some old Germanic dialect. Also Baltic (I prefer those, Baltic is cute)

Edit: I see wiktionary mentions Germanic *aigwaz, but it's, you know, wiktionary.

Slavic languages. Oh. What do I do, what do I do. Help.

Master Russian, then dabble in the rest of them, which should be much more comfortable and effective coming from a Slavic base.

Sure, "master Russian", sounds perfectly reasonable

Yeah, I've tried that approach. It doesn't work that well. You do Russian, then you see a language like Serbian and you're like "wait, you conjugate 'to be' in the present tense? And you have clitic and non-clitic forms for it? Wtf is going on??"

I think I'd just have to find the motivation for it. I have trouble choosing languages and finding stable motivation, which had lead me in the past to falsely believe I couldn't learn anything. But it's a funny loop, because you have to get into the stuff to see what you like and to see what possible motivation is there, so

For some reason, the strongest motivation I've ever found is suggesting to myself to actually move there, and then I'll go insane about the subject.

[Linguaphile]

Ájgge is probably the only word in any Saami language that I can remember off the top of my head, and I didn't know what it actually meant until I looked it up just now. I guess now I also know sápmi in Northern Sami.

How did the Lule word for 'time' come to be the only word you can remember in Saami?
One of the few words to make it into other languages from Saami is joik or yoik, which comes from a verb in Saami, Northern Saami juoigat, Lule Saami juojggat, South Saami joejkedh, "to depict in song".

That's one of those from old Germanic, right?

Huh? Both those words are indigenous.

They've got plenty of very indigenous words which are from some old Germanic dialect. Also Baltic (I prefer those, Baltic is cute)
Edit: I see wiktionary mentions Germanic *aigwaz, but it's, you know, wiktionary.

The etymology of ájgge/áigi/aega/aika isn't certain. There's an interesting article titled "The Story of Time: The Etymology of Finnish aika" in Adam Hyllested's Word Exchange at the Gates of Europe: Five Millennia of Language Contact. Possible etymologies for Proto-Finnic *aika are Germanic *aiwa-/*aigwaz (time), Baltic *eigā (way, course, run) (Proto-Baltic *ei) or Proto-Germanic *ajuki- (eternal).
Hyllested mentions all of these but prefers Proto-Germanic *ajuki-; the Estonian Etymological Dictionary prefers Baltic eigā. Wiktionary, as was already pointed out, prefers *aigwaz.
Regardless, it seems like what all of the theories agree on is that there were some interesting and somewhat unusual (for Finnic) sound changes involved, and it was already *aika in Proto-Finnic. In terms of sound changes, it's worth noting that the Estonian genitive singular form is aja and that Estonian aasta (year) comes from two forms of *aika meshed into one, from Proto-Finnic *aigasta-aika (still ajastaig and aastaig in southern Estonia).
There is also Proto-Finnic *ikä (age, lifetime), which supposedly is an indigenous word, from which came Finnish ikä (age, lifetime), Estonian iga (age, lifetime), Estonian ikka (still, always, all the time), Finnish ikävä (boring, sad), Northern Saami jahki (year), Lule Saami jahke (year), and so on. Some sources indicate that iga in early Estonian also meant "year".

(Wow, that was quite a rabbit hole!)

[Vlürch]

You do Russian, then you see a language like Serbian and you're like "wait, you conjugate 'to be' in the present tense? And you have clitic and non-clitic forms for it? Wtf is going on??"

Yeah, and when you get to the genders, which are apparently a hot potato for feminist reformers since IIRC inanimate objects and tools are feminine, and get scared of even trying to learn it because if neurodegenerative Sapir-Whorfism is true*, you'd end up becoming a rabid misogynist in the process...

*It's not, but...

I will say that Bulgarian kind of feels like a compromise between East and South Slavic to me.

Yeah, and it somehow seems cuter than most Slavic languages. I don't know if it's just the name, though, since I've never heard it spoken and only heard it sung like maybe once in the Eurovision... but whatever, "Bulgarian" is one of the cutest demonyms ever because "bul" is one of the cutest syllables in existence.

Baltic is cute

I agree, but for some reason Old Prussian seems uglier than the modern Lithuanian and Latvian, at least to me; it seems cool, but not cute. Anyway, if you value cuteness in languages, what do you consider the cutest language? For me it's obviously Japanese, although Korean can out-cute it under certain circumstances.

[vijayjohn]

How did the Lule word for 'time' come to be the only word you can remember in Saami?

Because of the exact same song that introduced you to it!

[Linguaphile]

How did the Lule word for 'time' come to be the only word you can remember in Saami?

Because of the exact same song that introduced you to it!

Oh. Well, to clarify, it wasn't because of the song that I looked up the etymology... I only looked it up this morning because of this thread. I knew they were cognates and early loanwords, but not specifically where from.
It was Mari Boine's songs that first introduced me to the level of similarity among some of the cognates, Northern Saami songs like Soria Moria Palássa (the other one I posted), because when I first heard that one there were no written lyrics or translations available, so the cognates were all I had to work with. I was intrigued by the fact that I could get the gist in a language I had never studied.
The very first one I heard was years ago, Mari Boine's Gula Gula whose first line gula gula nieida is cognate with Estonian kuula kuula neiu and Finnish kuule kuule neito. (Keep in mind that in Estonian k is the second degree of quantity of g. So gula essentially the same as kuula but with shortened quantity).
In many other Saami songs or texts I understand almost nothing without looking up and learning the words. It just depends. That's what makes it interesting.
I found Jarŋŋa's music more recently after I started getting interested in Lule Saami and learning some vocab. That particular song just makes an interesting example of the point about cognates, because of the catchy refrain "ájges ájggáj" that is such a good example of a Finnic cognate (contrasted with most of the rest of the song, which doesn't include any other cognates that are that close).
Except for that "just you and me" part of the song, which sounds exactly like English. LOL